Cadbury’s Creme Egg

A few weeks ago, it might even be a couple of months ago now, I noticed Cadbury’s Creme Eggs making their annual reappearance on supermarket shelves. As with displaying Christmas cards in September, they like to warm us up for Easter well in advance.

Such aggressive marketing can of course sicken us of the event long before it’s actually upon us, but in this instance, if you’re a fan of the Creme Egg, it lengthens the munching season which, to my mind, is no bad thing.

Here is one of the eggs of which I speak, lying down: And sitting up (I had to apply a blob of adhesive on its bottom for this shot, just as you would with a newborn baby, as it utterly refused to remain upright unaided): The Creme Egg is one of these clever confections, like the Tunnock’s teacake (featured elsewhere on this blog, click the name to see), that manages to wrap itself up in nothing more than a sheet of tin foil and some clever folds: Taken cumulatively over the years, I must have dedicated many hours to the consumption of Creme Eggs, but have yet to divest one of its foil without tearing the little jacket. However, if done carefully enough you can see that the jacket is simply a rectangle of prettily coloured foil: Despite being heavily barcoded, the Creme Egg must cause considerable annoyance to checkout assistants. I have often witnessed them trying and failing to scan Creme Eggs (I’ve even tried to do it myself at a self-service checkout and failed dismally), because of the way the foil is folded round the egg.

However you take the wrapper off, this is what greets you inside (apologies for the poor focus) – a beautiful chocolate egg shape with varying sizes of egg-shaped rings and a star in the middle on each side: What comes next is probably very much a matter of personal taste. I have tried various ways of breaking into a Creme Egg, but my favourite way is to bite into the top first, using a similar line of attack to that used on boiled eggs (except then I use a spoon, since I’m not yet a complete degenerate). I have, in fact, tried to open one by putting it in an egg cup and cracking it open with an egg spoon, but it wasn’t terribly successful and I remember the egg spoon getting very sticky with the fondant. As my father says, fingers were made before forks (and, by extension, teeth before spoons): Inside is a luscious, sticky, gooey fondant. Depending on how the egg has been stored, the texture of the fondant can sometimes be thicker and harder than it ought to be, but at its best it flows in a silky gloopy manner and glistens at you from inside its chocolate shell: Nowadays, I like to lick and slurp the fondant out but I remember in my youth I used to enjoy scooping it out with a teaspoon: When the little orange yokey bit is revealed it’s a joy to behold: Another thing I remember from my youth is that I used to enjoy a Creme Egg with a cup of tea (and still do), but rather than just dunk the egg in the tea or swish tea and egg around in my mouth together as I would do now, back then I used to use the scooping spoon to transfer some of my tea to the inside of the egg. I did it on this occasion, just for old time’s sake, but since it would distress my mother to see it and quite possibly lead to her disowning me, I’m not going to include the photo I took (it isn’t very nice, I must admit).

Around the egg, the thickness of the chocolate does vary a bit. For the most part it’s fairly uniform but towards one end – and with some eggs this is at the bottom and others at the top – there’s a a thicker, chunkier bit of chocolate. In the case of this egg it was at the bottom: I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever eaten more than one Creme Egg in a sitting. I have a very vague recollection of having done so once and having been left feeling so sick that I’ve never repeated the process, so – for me at least – more than one Creme Egg at a time would be too much. They’re so sweet, so sticky, so filling and so satisfying in themselves, that the shape and size Cadbury have made them is just right, in my opinion.

I generally buy my Creme Eggs singly, but now and then I splash out and buy a box of 6. I think it’s very fitting that Cadbury have jumped on the egg-packaging bandwagon by supplying them in half-dozen packs:

Oh dear, I wonder if there’s some international store that might stock them? I daresay you can order them over the internet, but that might be a bit excessive since you don’t even know if you like them or not. I hope you can find some.

I was eating chocolate while reading this – thank goodness, or else I would have had to buy some. Once again your descriptions are a credit to you. I can’t remember putting adhesive on the girls’ bottoms when they were babies, in order to help them sit up properly, but I guess I was very busy at the time and now I have no recollection of it. :)

I’m very glad you had some chocolate to hand, it’s a dreadful thing to be tempted and have none. I’m sure you must have stuck your babies to a surface for the purpose of photographing them, doesn’t everyone do that? As you say though, you would have been very busy and it was no doubt just one of those things you did without thinking about it.

I haven’t had a creme egg in YEARS (we might even be talking decades). Thank you for reminding me of how great they are. I used to dunk them in tea and then lick off the chocolate as it melted – is that gross and weird?

Also a certain member of my family (I won’t name names) has been known to eat a pack of 8 in one sitting. A diabetic coma waiting to happen.

Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. Can’t buy them here and the heat would deform their perfect shape. Another form of Comfort Food, although I don’t believe I’ll find a recipe for them! I VERY much appreciated this post, Lorna.

I was surprised when I moved here in September that Christmas stuff was already on the shelves. Is that typical here? I didn’t know if they were just trying to jump start people since the economy has been bad.

It’s like that every year here. I have in fact seen Christmas cards out as early as August, and Easter eggs are often put out in early January. I assume it must mean that they sell more by doing that, or else they wouldn’t do it.

That’s one of the few things I regret I can’t buy here, but I love the eggs. Thanks for the reminder, I have to email a friend who lives in London and ask her to sent me a batch.
Oh no, now I’m chocolate egg hungry…

Again you have triggered so many memories. We can now get these in Australia but for many, many years we were unable to do so.
I agree with you that one egg is sufficient. They are very sweet and I would feel sick if I ate more than one.

I’m glad to hear you can get them now. They are very sweet, but a couple of my mum’s little sayings spring to mind: ‘a little bit of what you fancy does you good’ and ‘everything in moderation’. Wise words.

I must admit I’ve never scooped tea into a creme egg before… but I can clearly remember eating more than one creme egg at a time! but, I couldn’t do it now. I really loved the old adverts with the kids eating them under the lids of their school desks.

Oh yes, I’d forgotten those ads but as soon as I read your post I could see that school desks one in my mind’s eye – a blast from the past! I wouldn’t really recommend scooping tea into them, I don’t know why I did it. I don’t think I’ll attempt more than one egg again, maybe it is an age thing as you say.

Research on a creme egg!!! Excellent. I wasn’t introduced to those until adulthood. I thought the “yolk” was adorable, although it never ocurred to me to treat it like a soft boiled egg! Haven’t had one recently. Maybe it’s time….

You’ve seen through my disguise, any excuse to wolf a Creme Egg! Can you get them okay where you are? I did hope I wasn’t introducing yet another confection you didn’t have nearby. If you’re still having trouble with the Twirl and the Flake I could post you an emergency parcel.

I’m so glad you can get Creme Eggs. What did you think of Divine? Which bar did you get, was it a flavoured one or one of the plain chocolate ones? The bigger bars are the same shape and size as the Green & Black’s, right enough (I bought some the other day for another ‘experiment’).

I didn’t buy either. Part of the problem is that where I shop there are so many gourmet and specialty chocolate choices (but not Flakes), I have a hard time making up my mind. That trip, I opted for something from the “bulk” selection for Easter: the most adorable robin’s egg blue shelled white chocolate encased caramel and counterpart speckled brown shelled dark chocolate caramel eggs. Hard to describe, but they look exactly like tiny real bird eggs and are heavenly.

Next time I go, (probably tomorrow, or Sunday), I’ll try the Divine, if you say it’s worth it. Heaven knows I spent as much on the little eggs…

Maybe I’ll do a phone pic of the eggs so you can see how hard they would be to resist.

I can completely understand your predicament. Those little blue eggs sound irresistible and I’d love to see a picture. Perhaps you could do a post about your trip to the shop? It sounds like a truly magnificent place. I was forgetting that the price of Divine will probably be astronomical since it’s an import, I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know if I’d pay an inflated price for it in your position, quite possibly not. Better to come to the UK for a holiday and stock up then!

what a fantastic blog, once again, i loved creme eggs as a kid, but too sweet now so I contain myself to one a year and savour the experience. I know what you mean about the seasonal availability of the eggs, an ongoing joke in our house is that when we see creme eggs in the shops we know it must be christmas!

I used to work with a lady who, as a statistician, had recommended to Cadbury that by only selling the eggs between christmas and easter that they’d make them more desirable!

i’d love to see how cream eggs are made – how do they get the fondant inside? how does the yoke stay in the middle? if only jim ‘ll fix it was still around. in the meantime I’m off to watch some gooey videos on you tube :) thank you once again. ax

I know, some secrets just have to remain a mystery. Regarding jim, in fact I did write and sadly got no reply. However, I managed to make my own dream come true after winning train tickets to anywhere in uk (long story). My dream……to sing and play my flute with the St Paul’s cathedral, London, boys choir! what did you want to do?

I know, some secrets just have to remain a mystery. Regarding jim, in fact I did write and sadly got no reply. However, I managed to make my own dream come true after winning train tickets to anywhere in uk (long story). My dream……to sing and play my flute with the St Paul’s cathedral, London, boys choir! what did you want to do?

That would have been a great ‘Fix it’! Winning train tickets was marvellous, and did that lead to you singing and playing at St Paul’s? Mine was to play keyboards with Midge Ure out of Ultravox. I didn’t get a reply either, but some time later some other young girl got to play keyboards with him. I couldn’t believe it!